Ballet, UWM, Medical College collaboration seeks 70,000 square feet along Water St.

The Harmony Initiative, a collaboration of the Milwaukee Ballet Company, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Peck School of the Arts and the Medical College of Wisconsin, plans to establish a 70,000- to 75,000-square-foot location in the Water Street corridor in downtown Milwaukee.
The facility would provide space for the Ballet Company’s offices; studios for the Ballet and its school, a small performance center with about 300 to 400 seats for small dance performances, and a sports medicine clinic for the Ballet and the general public.
The Harmony Initiative is looking for space along or near Water Street roughly between Kilbourn Avenue and the Park East corridor, said Milwaukee Ballet executive director Dennis Buehler. The initiative wants to be located as close as possible to the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts, which is where most of the Milwaukee Ballet’s performances are presented.
The initiative will consider existing buildings and proposed new buildings, Buehler said. However, because of the unique space needs for the dance facilities the current focus has been on a possible new building, he said.
“There are a number of options that could exist in the downtown area,” Buehler said. “We’re well into conversations with the city about their longer term redevelopment plans because a project that puts three major cultural institutions in one place could be a catalyst for any number of future projects as well.”
In addition the initiative would prefer to own the space, Buehler said. That would make it easier to do fund-raising for the project. So far $2 million has been contributed for the Harmony Initiative.
The new location would replace the Ballet’s current headquarters at 504 W. National Ave., in the city’s Walker’s Point neighborhood.